


20 Questions

by janntries



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band), Winner (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24162487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janntries/pseuds/janntries
Summary: "A simple conversation becomes a confession of my most intimate affairs."
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Song Minho | Mino
Kudos: 15





	1. 9th-Hour-Mark

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the award-winning playscript of the same title

"Let's make this flop so hard, they won't even think of doing this anymore," he declared unexpectedly disturbing the quietness in the room as they slowly filled in their empty stomachs with cold noodles and began to munch down the chicken.

She raised her gaze to look at him, bewildered with his sudden declaration. 

They are on the 9th-hour-mark of their 24-hour lockdown orchestrated by their peers. They were victims of the cursed marked paper on the container passed around like some draw lot to decide whose lives will be changed, at some point or another.

The tradition started two years ago when a spin-the-bottle x seven-minutes-in-heaven game sets off a budding romance between two of their friends. A year later, they upgraded the game. The pair will spend a day in a hotel room, barred from outside contact. That fateful night reared a second couple.

They spent the day unwittingly ignoring each other. He spent the better half of the afternoon doodling on his sketchpad while his company was fully absorbed with the book she was reading. They seemed not to pay any attention to each other. He was not bothered by their lack of interaction, at all. He needed a moment for himself to think over some things that transpired in the last couple of months. His thoughts spun around, going through snippets of a particular event he remembers so vividly. He wanted to detangle his thoughts before he moves on. Graduation is looming large on the horizon.

He did not notice he'd fallen into a slumber; a tap in his shoulder woke him and brought him back to his senses. 

"Our food is here," Irene said.

*

She knew Song Mino since she was a freshman in college. He's a close friend of her best friend's boyfriend. The thing is, their friendship exists mostly as part of a bigger group of friends. It's not like they dislike each other, more like they never had anything to do with each other. There is always an elephant lurking behind them when they are left alone. And the awkwardness between them grew more after he became her roommate's boyfriend. She finds their whole arrangement right now ridiculous. How can the universe play them dirty?

His girlfriend was an art major like him. She was lighthearted and bright; her personality is as colorful as her unfinished canvass in their dorm room. She possesses an optimism not easily deterred by the harsh realism; her spirits never flagged down without a hitch. She envies her carefree character, sometimes a little too much. 

They finished their food in total silence. She was aimlessly looking at her finished plate, trying to avoid eye contact when he stood up. He went to fetch a bottle of wine and poured himself a drink. He gulped it down in one go.

Is he alright? He's been acting odd ever since Jenny left for Europe. Are they okay?

"Please give me too," she motioned him to fill her a glass.

"Oh, sure," he replied. There was a little bit of hesitation before he poured her a glassful.

"You know? I've always considered you as more than an acquaintance even though we rarely talk," she blurted out of nowhere while swirling her wine. "So when we got unluckily paired for this, I said to myself, 'This isn't bad.' Boy, I have never been this wrong.'' She paused to take a peek of him before taking a sip.

He chuckled.

She finally looked straight into him, for the first time since earlier but with a sudden, unexplained vexation in her expression.

*

“Wow, this is like a first. The great Bae Irene had it wrong.”

He was astonished by the contradictions in her statement. Irene isn’t the proud type, but her admission of possibly being wrong undeniably amused him. He was between giggles when caught a glimpse of her irked face.

“Why do you guys have to put me on a pedestal, in a different standard, that it’s unusual for me to be wrong?” They are facing each other now, her countenance affirming an inkling of displeasure.

Her sudden remark surprised him. At once, he felt naive and moronic for his reaction. He sensed that there must be more to it; he wanted to interpose but hurriedly offered his apologies instead.

"You know that's not the case, I'm sorry if it came off a little bit thoughtless and insensitive," he responded apologetically. He wanted to soothe her. Suddenly, he felt accountable for her earlier fit.

Nothing more was said to fill the screaming void between them. Ultimately, she loosened up and let out a gentle sigh before taking a sip from her glass.

He had a good look at the woman in front of him. At that moment, she emanates a level of maturity precocious of her age. But there's something under the low light of the dining room that brought him back to the first time they saw each other. He fondly remembered her bashfulness and her soft yet hauntingly beautiful face. She has always been this enchanting. 

"More?" he asked sheepishly, hoping to brighten up the dampen mood.

*

She felt embarrassed about her outburst; it was unfair to him. She guessed the alcohol made her extra sensitive. The way he said it niggled her. It sounded like those words are marked with finality, with no room for defense.

Bae Irene will never get wrong.

"I guess I thought we'll be comfortable enough to carry out conversations." She laughed dryly at her remark.

"Are we that awkward? I mean, we're talking right now." He rebutted cheekily.

"It's the wine and I guess we need more," she scoffed and raised the empty bottle and stood up. She isn't really the drinker but they needed the alcohol to ease the tension. "They actually left us a lot," directing his gaze to the bottles lined up on the counter. She poured their glasses while silence enveloped the atmosphere again. 

"How about we take this time to know each other?" Mino asked. "I mean since there's nowhere for us to go. Let's just make our stay here worthwhile. Let's make this night interesting," he continued.

Huh.

Her face went from confused to frightened in a split second. She became uneasy and started to shift away from him, hands crossed in her chest.

“Ya! That’s not what I mean!” he cackled. 

“Let’s ask each other questions, anything you can think of. And you have to answer it, however delicate the question is.”

“I rather that we continue to be awkward than spend this night being corny”, she replied jokingly.

He snickered at her banter. “Come on.”

“Okay, but we’ll only be allowed to ask ten questions each. We can’t lie and everything should remain in this room. We cannot ask the same question.”

“Sure, you want to start?”

“No, I want to ask the last question.”

There is something she wants to know.


	2. The Warm Up

He was a little bit stunned by her keen reception to his proposal. It hasn’t been that long, yet they were about to finish their second bottle of wine. They still have a whole night ahead of them and he thought of how fiddly they were finishing their dinner an hour ago. 

“You know I have to ask this. What’s the truth behind the outburst earlier?” looking at her with a worried glance.

Irene is the brain of their group, well, one of. He recollected that she used to give Jennie a hand with her studies. She never flunked an exam, she’s among the top students of her department and Applied Physics as a major was a breeze for her. 

“Ah,” she responded impassively.

He was right, she was expecting the question. There was no hint of irritation on her face. She spent another minute in pensive silence before she gathered her thoughts and continued. 

“Expectations. I grew to loathe that word,” she let out a short, derisive laugh. 

“I used to like it when people praise me. How perfect I am to be pretty, intelligent, and determined. You know how vain people can be.” He can sense aversion in her voice. 

Irene pursed her mouth with a mischievous smirk. She straightened her seat and directed her gaze in her half-empty drink.

“But I realized,” she carried on, still staring blankly at her glass. “Praises are not nothing but perfectly veiled curses. It’s like radiation; it’s relatively harmless until you’ve developed cancer. Those sweet flatteries are like strings of codes in a software program – commanding you how to live a life. When programmers write codes, they’re just writing instructions for the software to follow. If, then,” she emphasized the last two words.

“IF Irene decides to do something, THEN it shouldn’t be anything less than exceptional. That’s the only way, that’s how she should operate because she's perfect.” 

Her voice held a record of disdain. The atmosphere of the room is slowly being envelope with unspoken desolation. They sat there, across each other, motionless, waiting for her statements to settle in.

“When did you start feeling this way?” he quizzed her more. She never came off as someone restricted. To him, she was living in perfect harmony with her elements. 

“That’s two questions!” she yelled while shifting her eyes on him. She lightly tapped her hand on the table, feigning protest.

“We never said follow-ups aren’t allowed,” he raised his brow playfully as a defense.

“Touché.” She beamed with amusement.

“When I was in my senior year in high school, a teacher of mine told me to not blow things off; you know, to continue to be the good student,” she said looking away. “She said that if I become a letdown, my younger sister will probably be too.”

“That’s too much! However you live your life should be separate and different from your sibling” he bawled at her. 

“I know. That’s why I got a little bit offended when you said I never got it wrong. I’m a human being too, to err is in my DNA.”

“I apologized, that was very insensitive of me,” Mino pleaded, feeling the weight of his earlier remark. 

“That’s okay, I’ll let that one slide.” She winked and finished her glass.

*

She wasn’t perturbed by the slight invasiveness of the question. She was, for an unknown reason, pleased that her outburst piqued his interest. She doesn’t like it when people pry into her private matters, but there’s a mix of satisfaction and relief divulging those to him. She’s not in pursuit of apprehension, she just wanted to convey her sensibilities. 

She crossed her arms, carefully thinking of her first question. The last phone call she had with her roommate left a lot of unanswered questions and gossip within their circle, but she became aware that she has to ask nine more questions so she decided to throw something harmless for a start. She leaned forward, resting her chin against her left hand while drumming the fingers of her other hand. She collected her glass and offered him a mischievous smirk. His face is smeared with anticipation and curiosity. 

“If you are given a chance to be something else, living or nonliving, what will you choose to be?” 

“A tree,” he replied quickly without placing much thought on the question.

She stared at him with a puzzled look prompted by his swift response. He was grinning when she caught sight of his lashes. They were beautifully long. She continued to examine his face, his lips, his nose. She was waiting for him to continue when she was pulled into a spatial continuum before his lips curled and brought her back to her self-consciousness. A few seconds had passed.

“You got to elaborate that, you know?” How am I supposed to get anything from a single word?” She unexpectedly became wary of her thoughts. A quick laugh escaped from his lips. “Is that your next question?” he asked. She was shaking her head in disbelief. “This brat, hey!” she shrieked and they both filled the room with soft laughter.

They refilled their glasses as he began to expound his answer.

“There’s this tree in the middle of a busy road in my hometown. It stands like a beacon, like a lighthouse. It’s the first and last thing you will see when arriving or departing. When I left for college, I knew I was leaving home when I saw the tree disappearing from the distance in the backseat of my father’s car. The tree is so huge that it seems, from below, it’s sprawling into the sky, it's so old that it probably outlived my grandparents.” He recounted affectionately.

“Do you think other living things retain memory too?” He was pondering.

“Should I count that as another question?” She retaliated mockingly; he cracked up.

“It’s fascinating, really. The tree has probably seen it all – the hopefulness and enthusiasm of anyone going beyond the familiarity of living in a small town, the frustrations and disappointment of the unfortunate ones scarred by the cruelty of this world or the excitement and delight of those that came back with favors. The tree witnessed everything that happened in our town, from the most mundane to the most remarkable moment. You know what they say; the only thing separating humans from other living forms is that we keep secrets. I can’t imagine how many secrets that tree knew, how many heartbreaks it endured, how many souls it bid goodbye, how many good wishes it offered.” He continued, his voice laced with yearning. 

“People get inspired by a lot of things, some with their circumstance, some with the sensation in their surroundings. I think I’m mostly inspired by the many facets of human interactions, the plight of humanity. I want to be that tree, overlooking everyone, witnessing their best and worst, defying worldly lifetime and savoring every encounter.” 

“Wow, that was…something.” She tried to rack her brain to find the right reaction. She did not imagine that her innocuous question would stir some sort of contemplation. She took a glance at the clock, a couple of minutes before nine-thirty. “I think I need a strong drink.” 

He let out a boisterous laugh.


	3. The Moment

“What’s the first thing you wanted to do after graduation?”  


He sensed the tension between them gradually settling down. Having poured several glasses of wine, he felt a pleasant warmth in his body and an odd amiability toward the lady across him. Friendly glances were exchanged as well as muted giggles and lovely smiles. He marveled at how animated their conversation had become.  


“Hmmm… I guess to get out of our house.” It came out more like a question than a statement.  


“Don’t get me wrong, I have a very beautiful family,” Irene hastily followed through, sweeping off any hesitation her tone might have hinted.  


He gave her a perplexed look, baffled at how to interpret her train of thought. Tilting his head, gaze unmoved, narrowed eyes, furrowed brows, he looked at her as if trying to search for answers in her face.  


She must have noticed that he kept his eyes on her, a red flush began to creep across her cheeks. His gaze was intense, but not aggressive to rattle her composure. Finally, she met his eyes with a deepened blush. They were holding each other’s gaze for a good couple of seconds before she looked away.  


“My parents aren’t strict or controlling. In fact, they have been very understanding.” Her voice was taut. She took her glass and cleared her throat, an attempt to dispel the sensation that was brewing at the moment. They could not find anything stronger to drink, something that can drown the seriousness of their conversions, so they settled with the bottles of wine left for them.  


“I want them to be independent of me,’’ she went on. “We always equate moving out to gaining independence but, in reality, it is our parents that are freed from their responsibility. I want them to at least have that freedom back.” Her voice was low and sprinkled with somewhat indignation. He continued to look puzzled until she gave in to his probing eyes with a shrug and a forced smile.  
“Parenthood is strangely funny.” Her voice trailed off. “We’ve heard stories of how hard it is to raise a child. I know this doesn’t apply to all, but parenthood is a conscious decision.”  


Conscious. His thoughts reverted to that day, shouting and crying echoed on the walls, brushes swept off the table, fresh paint spilled on the floor.  


“I hate that parenthood is associated with the word sacrifice,” she continued, unaware that his mind was wandering to a time removed from the present. “I know my parents gave up a lot of things for me, that’s why, more than anything, I want to repay them for the struggles they went through for me, for us. But don’t you think it’s a bit unfair for a child to grow up with a mindset that we are the reason for their hardships that’s why we need to give in to whatever they want from us, however absurd they are?”  


Not waiting for an answer, she pressed on with her impassioned monologue. “Gratitude and servitude and the blurred line between them. I hope my future child will not carry that burden of guilt. The shift in my priority, my life being limited is not because of my child’s existence but rather because of my decision to raise a child. It’s tragic how modern times presents parenthood to connote regret.”

He was, on the other hand, still in a haze, his consciousness filled with ideas of what could have been, perception transcending his current surroundings, that he missed most of what she said. His awareness was roused when his cognition suddenly kicked in. Irene felt the change in his apprehension, judging by his rapid blinking.  


“I’m sorry, I think I went off on a tangent on that one.”  


“Ah, no. It’s okay, I understand how you feel.” A sad smile on his face.  


*  


She can’t shake off the subdued melancholy that glistened in his eyes when he smiled. It was haunting her to soothe him, like a plea, but she doesn’t know how to. She wasn’t the affectionate type, but she isn’t forbidding. Just the right empathy to accommodate social relationships.  


She offered to refill his glass instead, wishing to drown down the unspoken sorrow with the alcohol. Still looking fazed, he glugged the wine.  


“Tell me, what particular theme do you cherish most in your art?”  


They came from two different “cultures”, as they say. She embodies the discipline where empirical facts, mechanical equations, and verified observations are revered while he hails from a world churned by creativity, self-reflection, and curiosity.  


“Hmmm.” He mused on before his mouth registered a tiny twitch. “A naked woman.”  


“Why am I not surprised at all?” she quipped while rolling her eyes. She gaped at how predictable and common his answer was and snorted at her disappointment.  


“What?” he matched her suppressed laughter with light chuckles. “Every man wants a naked woman.”  


“Hey!” She picked up her fork and playfully brandished it at Mino.  


“Whoa, whoa.” He uttered between hearty laughs. “Okay, before you go berserk,” he murmured while reaching for her fork to place it down, “and accuse me of being perverted...”  


“Which I am now convinced you are,” she scoffed, cutting him off midway. He recoiled to his side, in anticipation of a surprising attack, like a frightened wild cat. He raised both his hands slightly above his shoulders in an act of a staged surrender while a smug is visibly painted on his face. She coyly pursed her lips before she returned with a broad grin. He took her delighted reactions as permission to open another bottle. They quaffed a couple of rounds of refills.  


“Let’s say there are two kinds of men who want to see a woman naked.” He started off, maneuvering himself to redemption. “The first kind sees the naked body as a commodity, an article to satisfy his appetite; one who keeps a mental picture of the exposed flesh, the unprotected form. One who demands to devour the fullness of her parts, claiming to be his; the one who sees it as an object.”  


“But she is an object, an OBJECT of your painting?” She begged to differ.  


“She isn’t,” he quickly refuted. “An object is something you act upon. Rather, the naked body is an idea I want to express, the essence I want to represent. The SUBJECT of my artwork.” A smirk broke out on his lips, pleased at how impressively smooth his delivery was.  


“The second type sees the naked woman as a story to unfold,” he resumed with suave and confidence in his voice. “Every curve is a moving mystery to decipher, every scar is a concealed history to unearth. Someone who wants to see her bare but not empty, undressed of all insecurities and weakness, of fears and boundaries. Someone who stares without a weight of shame in her unclothed figure; for, in her nakedness, he sees a reflection of his own nakedness too. His proportions and symmetry, his virtues and imperfections, exposed and unprotected.” He finished it off in an ingratiating manner. 

“You really have a way with your words, huh?” It was genuinely confounding how Mino turned out to be exceptionally eloquent.


End file.
